After years of AT&T I switched to T-mobile. There were a few reasons behind the switch – and probably important for people who travel a lot, or who have business accounts to know:
When you travel a lot you get to know about telephones and the importance of data plans. You are notified when you enter a foreign country that your telephone is roaming and international data changes. So I was use to calling AT&T to tell them I was going and could I get the data plan on my wife’s and my phone.
It isn’t the phone calls or the texts that are important in our world – it is data. Uploading those photos and downloading Facebook takes a lot of data. Data, as it turns out, can be very expensive.
T-mobile – you don’t worry about it. Data is free in about 120 countries.
AT@T – you pay for data – you pay a lot for data, and if you don’t know that Dropbox syncs everytime you open it- you can pay a lot.
With AT@T they introduced a self-limiting plan – where it turns off automatically after 30 days – good feature. I have found international data plans had not been turned off before and was paying for them. That was a pain.
After switching a fellow traveler said he has used T-mobile world wide since they came out with this data plan and it is amazing – much better than AT@T
Business 7 days a week
Why I switched wasn’t data – why I switched was spending several hours on a Saturday only to discover that AT@T business isn’t open on weekends. I run a 7 day a week business, if I need them – I need them. They were not available.
I went to their website and signed on – if you sign onto the residential side you find you have to sign onto the business side- why not one site? I don’t know. The website had a loop so everytime I wanted to add a line or a feature it prompted me to sign in again – and again – and again. So call the 611 number “we will stay with you until you are connected to business,” and when business connects saying “AT&T business” they hang up – the rest of the message tells you that they are closed on weekends.
I was told to go to the AT@T store- I did, they couldn’t help – another hour lost – they were nice, but could not help.
Talked to them on twitter – they said they could help me if I could call them. By this time T-mobile said to look at them to make the switch. That is amazing social media service. I liked it. Went into the T-mobile store- changed SIM cards, and told – and confirmed – I have business accounts there 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
@ATTcares kept tweeting me saying if they could only call me—sadly, I had spent three phone calls and four hours on a Saturday trying to get something already. I had enough – the switch was great.
History with T-mobile
Here is the irony – I have a long history with T-mobile. When the merger was happening with Deutche telecom and Voicestream to become T-mobile, I was in the meetings. I was chairman of the board of Cook Inlet Region, Inc – and we what amounted to a minority share of Voicestream (through owning minority interests in airwaves). With our vote, they had more than 51% of shareholders to insure the merger. John Stanton, then CEO of Voicestream gave me one very cool telephone.
Sadly, because they didn’t have coverage in Alaska, I had to switch to AT@T.
It is good to be back (and they have coverage in Alaska).
